Imagine walking through a beautiful garden in France over 100 years ago.

The air smells sweet with blooming flowers, and colorful water lilies float peacefully on a quiet pond.

You notice an older man with a white beard sitting by the water's edge, paint on his hands as he makes quick, bold strokes on a canvas.

He's not trying to paint every leaf perfectly, but instead capturing the way morning light

dances on the water and makes everything shimmer.

This artist is Claude Monet, and he's about to change art forever.

Claude Monet was born in Paris, France, in 1840, but his family moved to the seaside town of La Avre when

he was five years old. Growing up by the ocean had a huge impact on young Claude because

he became fascinated watching how light changed throughout the day. Sometimes the sea would

be deep blue, other times it would sparkle silver, and during sunsets it would

glow orange and pink. These constant changes in light and color would later become the most

important part of his artwork. As a teenager, Claude became famous around town for drawing funny

caricatures that exaggerated people's features, making their noses bigger or

their ears stick out more.

People loved these drawings so much that they paid him good money for them, which was very

unusual for someone so young.

Everything changed when he met an older artist named Eugene Budin, who taught him something

revolutionary. Instead of painting inside dark studios

like most artists did, Buden showed Claude how to paint outdoors in natural light. In the 1800s,

most artists thought this was crazy, but Claude discovered that painting outside allowed him to

capture true colors and feelings in ways that studio painting never could.

Claude became one of the leaders of a new art style called Impressionism.

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